AMD put to the test

As more white-box solution providers turn to AMD-based systems in search of better price-performance, they are finding growing support for the chip from leading motherboard manufacturers.

CRN Test Center engineers decided to put four AMD760-chipset motherboards to the test, and discovered that all the vendors offer white-box builders a high-quality upsell opportunity at a competitive price.

The engineers were not surprised by the narrow performance spread between the motherboards in this roundup. With one notable exception, the products tested delivered almost equal performance at comparable costs.

The GA7DX rev 3.0 motherboard from Gigabyte Technology scored the highest. ASUSTeK Computer's (ASUS) A7M266 and the AD11 from First International Computer of America (FICA) tied for second place, but each trailed the leader by less than 1 percent, which fell within the test's margin of error. The K7 Master MS6341 motherboard from Micro-Star International, however, scored 18 percent lower than Gigabyte's GA7DX.

Each motherboard featured a new communication and networking riser (CNR) card slot, which supports NICs, home-phone networking adapters, modems, USB ports, Bluetooth and audio systems. The CNR offers...